Racial slur on sofa label stuns family

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http://ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/SofaDescription.jpg

http://www.thestar.com/article/200265

― and what, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

"That's terrible, that's a racial ... something?"

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

i'd hit it

― rps, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

"Every time I sit on it, I'll think of that," she said.

Man, wait til her daughter starts listening to rap albums.

― blueski, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

It's no Ronaldhino bottle opener.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

That sofa is clearly much, much darker than her.

But umm so does it really seem likely that Chinese manufacturers would be the ultimate original source of that label? (Or Canadian Hindus, really?) It'd seem like a pretty white-American thought process to have that description spring to mind in the first place.

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

Man, wait til her daughter starts listening to rap albums.

Wow, and I thought ILX might have been a respite from this particular line of bullshit.

― milo z, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

my bathroom walls are "honky" I don't see the problem

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

Is Imus making furniture now?

― brownie, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

my bedroom is as red as the nose on a drunk mick

― kenan, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

(xpost DAMN YOU)

Although I guess I could imagine it as a wacky translation mishap:

CHINESE MANUFACTURER: This sofa is ... like the color of an African's skin. What is a good description for North American market?

IMUS: Hold on there, caller, let me ask my special guest ... Michael Richards!

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

sorry milo, I'm European.

― blueski, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

It'd seem like a pretty white-American thought process to have that description spring to mind in the first place.

yes white people are the only folks who watch dave chappelle enough to think this would be a hilarious prank

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

(wondering about point of thread generally also)

― blueski, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

Ha well I guess I hadn't thought about the prank-replacement possibilities here: I suppose plenty of N. American warehouse workers are handling and tagging furniture on its way from China to your living room. (And that's certainly more plausible than anyone actually having it, like, entered into their inventory that way.)

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

"doo doo brown" would have been way funnier

― kenan, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

yeah the first thing that comes to mind is actually a couple of dudes chuckling ALL DAY after they staple that label and box it up.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

my wife sent me the cnn video link on that a couple days ago. I found it kind of endearing that the little girl who discovered the tag didn't even know what the n-word was.

― Edward III, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

doo doo brown was funnier, I'm sure, but stuff gets old

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

I... wow. This is the ultimate cognitive dissonance.

― HI DERE, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

Reading the article makes it worse! Was this site hacked by The Onion?

― HI DERE, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

it's entirely plausible that this is the chinese label. attitudes about race across asia are pretty fucked up, i gather.

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:31 (nineteen years ago)

It's also entirely possible that one or the other warehouse workers will hear about this and we will soon be in danger of taking home the "Kumar Brown" model

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

Dan OTM. I find it weirdly Onionesque.

― blueski, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

attitudes about race across asia are pretty fucked up, i gather.

remember the Bubble Sisters?

― kenan, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:34 (nineteen years ago)

"warehouse workers"?? what link in the chain do you really think this happened in? why would an import company go to the trouble of relabeling shit? why would a chinese manufacturer fill an order, but say "here are you 8000 sofas. btw you're gonna have to make up a label for all of them, nice doing business thx"

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:36 (nineteen years ago)

"Douglas explained the origins of the word to daughter Olivia, telling how it was a bad name that blacks were called during the days of slavery in the United States."

Obviously the label is inappropriate, but I really don't think explaining racial history to your child is such an ordeal, is it?

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Yeah but would fucked-up Asian race attitudes come out in that kind of language, phrasing, and idea? I'd assume the Chinese have their own methods and vernacular for this stuff.

gff -- look at the label she's holding; a sofa did not come all the way from China with THAT laser-printed sucker being the only form or sticker attached to it along the way!

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

IMO the manufacturer is not to blame, it's the sourcing agent if i'd bet.

― Steve Shasta, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

^...had to bet.

― Steve Shasta, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

you're right, sofas come in shipments of 8000 at a time and import companies never relabel anything stateside or elsewhere. definitely not the chinese, and certainly not for the purpose of abusing a trade deficit by obscuring the actual country of origin.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

Actually WAIT dude look at the picture: the label has a purchase order number on it, suggesting pretty clearly "not from the Chinese manufacturer for sure." Suggesting "labeled by retailer Kumar's business for delivery," possibly. (And opening possibility that label was placed by someone with the black purchase-orderer specifically in mind.)

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's the replies from the supplier/manufacturer/etc that make it seem so oniony, but as someone who spent some time living in and around toronto, they are REALLY TYPICALLY TORONTONIAN sounding replies. something about them just reminds me of everyone i've ever spoken to from t.

WELL xposted

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

tombot 8080

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:43 (nineteen years ago)

@nabisco, could it not be the purchase order for, say, a block of 50 of them or something?

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 17:43 (nineteen years ago)

From what I remember from my previous life:

Shipping label terms of compliance are determined by distributor/import agent/retailer. The manufacturer is not responsible for making up colorway terms/descriptions, those would be supplied by distributor/import agent/retailer during sample approval.

― Steve Shasta, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

Actually wait again, the PO number would probably refer to the retailer's purchase order from the wholesaler. (The retailer would put the customer's name on there.)

Possibly, Will, but I am totally out-of-my-ass guessing that a distributor's order for couches from an overseas manufacturer would be tagged with something a little bigger and more official, with more information, possibly in multiple languages, etc.?

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

This was like 10 years ago when HK was still under UK rule, I have no idea what it's like there now.

― Steve Shasta, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

well i guess anything is possible. i'm not like mr. import trade guru STEVE SHASTA [haha xpost] or anything. clueless racist chinese manufacturer seems as likely as racist canadian import delivery guys

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:48 (nineteen years ago)

This is fun. Mentally reconstructing furniture supply chains based on nothing but vague logic and intuition. We're like detectives, I like this.

Search for more clues in the image! (Which, BTW, nice-looking couch.)

― nabisco, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:48 (nineteen years ago)

i was gonna say that, the couch in question is damn sharp

― kenan, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:49 (nineteen years ago)

i don't think the red curtains work, though. :(

― kenan, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.kellerstrans.com/blog/?p=9

― and what, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

it is pretty stunning that, whatever the label's origin, nobody from ship to showroom noticed a thing until it got in a consumer's house.

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:52 (nineteen years ago)

There used to be an old paint tin in the back of the shop, of, er, "that particular colo(u)r shade". It was lying around on a shelf somewhere and looked really old when we bought the place in 1979. Maybe it was from the '50's, I don't know. I imagine it's probably been chucked out at some point between then and now. Looking at the rack of Humbrol enamel tinlets in the shop, that particular shade is now called "Service Brown"

^sorry I'm being particularly boring here^

I never thought I'd see the phrase used today though! WTF, I mean even old folks would know better than to use that terminology. I bet it's someone's idea of a "prank". Someone who deserves to have their balls superglued to the backs of their calves, if so.

― Pashmina, Friday, 13 April 2007 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

I am still boggling at that picture.

― HI DERE, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:01 (nineteen years ago)

She has a glorious forehead.

― nickalicious, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:05 (nineteen years ago)

Her hairline is showing marvelous weave-creep, yes.

― HI DERE, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:06 (nineteen years ago)

I googled the serial number and the only hit is a chinese website! I don't know what it says, though, and the link is broken too, I think.

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

those eyebrows!!

― scott seward, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

the cached site reveals that it is jewelery and not couches. i am mentally deficient.

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 18:10 (nineteen years ago)

THIS is the jewelry in question. PRETTY CLASSY

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

how do people feel about eyebrow tattooing? sometimes it's all i can look at on a person with fancy pencil-thin eyebrows. they are kinda hypnotic.

― scott seward, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:13 (nineteen years ago)

Assuming, of course, that says HS and not NS. I can't tell in that photo. if it says NS, though, a google gives me a chinese site with granite countertops or something. The model in question:

http://www.xinyun-stone.com/upload/product/200512411116.jpg

WHY AM I DOING THIS

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 18:15 (nineteen years ago)

Whenever my mum goes on one of her dodgy anti-PC rants (she's not racist really, she just reads the Mail a bit too much) she always goes on about how her school uniform in the 60s was called "N----- Brown". Maybe the Chinese place was looking at some old colour chart for the English name, one that was made before it was changed to "Service Brown", and didn't realise what it meant.

― V, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

She doesn't actually pronounce the hyphens, sadly.

― V, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:20 (nineteen years ago)

can couches be racist: y/n?

― Mr. Que, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:26 (nineteen years ago)

did nobody read that link posted upthread?

A quick Baidu search for that offensive adjective showed otherwise. It’s mentioned all over the place as an acceptable translation of 深棕色, otherwise known as “dark brown.” Four people on this Baidu forum give n-brown as the most preferred translation! They even give a link to a dictionary entry that supports this translation! I only saw one search result that cautioned against using that translation. Other companies come up on the search that officially use this word as well.

― bernard snowy, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:26 (nineteen years ago)

Not sure but with a name like Chesterfield you know there's at least SOME classist elitsm going on

xpost yeah saw that link. i am shocked that it hasn't already turned up elsewhere (or maybe it has, and the paper hasn't researched/mentioned it)

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

Going by the spelling of "color" I'm going to guess the label was not made in Canada.

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:43 (nineteen years ago)

Hahaha, clever, but doesn't necessarily prove anything (if they're going to write n-brown on something, i doubt they're running a spell checker... hey, I wonder if the N-word gets flagged in spell checks.)

― Will M., Friday, 13 April 2007 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

I think sometimes ethan just starts these threads so people can postulate a bunch of bonkers crap and over/underreact to the news item when he's got the snopes-style answer already waiting loaded up in another tab, 100 posts into the fray he just dumps it on everyone like "hur hur"

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:47 (nineteen years ago)

(e.g. I used to be the kind of person who would have done the research and found that baidu stuff myself and now I feel kind of dumb and lazy)

― TOMBOT, Friday, 13 April 2007 18:48 (nineteen years ago)

nobody's given me my otms for guessing shit right either

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 19:00 (nineteen years ago)

...

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 13 April 2007 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

haha sry

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 19:13 (nineteen years ago)

holy shit, I cracked up at the picture b/c I thought it was the Onion or something. but it wasn't. :(

― Ms Misery, Friday, 13 April 2007 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

because if it was the onion, it would be funny?

― cutty, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:06 (nineteen years ago)

Satire is funny, yes. Reality, not so much.

― Ms Misery, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, it would be funny if someone satirized the known racist bias of the furniture industry.

― kenan, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:18 (nineteen years ago)

especially if they introduce the satire in the headline and then drag out the same joke for 10 paragraphs, that would be awesome.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:23 (nineteen years ago)

all three of you, fuck off.

― Ms Misery, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:28 (nineteen years ago)

I am waiting for a political cartoon with a Chinese couch, Imus, lacrosse players, and a black person with excessive jewelry and a gun.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:32 (nineteen years ago)

don't forget the crying statue of liberty

― gff, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:32 (nineteen years ago)

and a trucker hat

― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:33 (nineteen years ago)

don't get me wrong, i think it's funny whether or NOT it's the onion

― cutty, Friday, 13 April 2007 21:35 (nineteen years ago)

That sofa is clearly much, much darker than her.

But umm so does it really seem likely that Chinese manufacturers would be the ultimate original source of that label? (Or Canadian Hindus, really?) It'd seem like a pretty white-American thought process to have that description spring to mind in the first place.

-- nabisco, Friday, April 13, 2007 1:17 PM (Yesterday)

this is basically my job now. i work for one of the biggest retail chains in the country as a copy editor. the process works like this: after the merchants working at the retailer choose to buy a product, people in the advertising market request copy from the manufacturer, then it goes through the standard copy editing procedure. we sell a lot of stuff from china (of course), and the advertising copy that the vendors provide us is filled with ridiculous, nonsensical english. nothing this absurd though.

thing is though, my huge company only started doing the procedure this way a few years back. before that, the advertising department would request copy from vendor and whatever crazy shit they sent in was pretty much automatically what we used. i find it pretty credible that the dude selling this, going through hundreds of thousands of items in a database, would never notice this.

― modestmickey, Saturday, 14 April 2007 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

people working in the advertising ~~market~~... department

― modestmickey, Saturday, 14 April 2007 17:49 (nineteen years ago)

i kinda really wanna buy a new couch now.

― tehresa, Saturday, 14 April 2007 18:35 (nineteen years ago)

Was I the only ILXoR who saw the thread title and thought that IKEA had chosen something desperately inappropriate for one of their cutesy mock-Swedish range names?

― Groke, Saturday, 14 April 2007 20:58 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha

― HI DERE, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:02 (nineteen years ago)

http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123102/2111732/2117013/050422_noggerblack_ex.jpg

― 31g, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:22 (nineteen years ago)

Uh, I should explain that that's the label of a Swedish ice cream brand that someone wrote about in Slate a while ago.

― 31g, Saturday, 14 April 2007 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

[Removed Illegal Image]

― The Reverend, Sunday, 15 April 2007 00:36 (nineteen years ago)

[Removed Illegal Image]

― The Reverend, Sunday, 15 April 2007 00:36 (nineteen years ago)

irony lives

― HI DERE, Sunday, 15 April 2007 00:56 (nineteen years ago)

The idea seems like something from the Onion, but the writing is a completely different style.

― Tape Store, Sunday, 15 April 2007 02:49 (nineteen years ago)

lol, this reminds me of my youth where we would refer to sleeveless undershirts as "guinea Tees" (this was before "wife-beater" came into voogue)i think this was a northeast thing, anyone else use this admittedly crude phrase?

― bobby bedelia, Sunday, 15 April 2007 05:37 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe Ive missed a post somewhere but wtf, how is "service brown" any better than "N---- brown"!!?!?

― Trayce, Sunday, 15 April 2007 06:20 (nineteen years ago)

"Service brown" doesn't make any sense.

― Sparkle Motion, Sunday, 15 April 2007 06:40 (nineteen years ago)

how is "service brown" any better than "N---- brown"!!?!?

Um, service isn't a racist epithet?

― milo z, Sunday, 15 April 2007 06:41 (nineteen years ago)

Well it is if you maybe think of service industries? Maybe I am overthinking this.

― Trayce, Sunday, 15 April 2007 06:42 (nineteen years ago)

'Service Brown' struck me as a bit awkward as well, but I work in the service industry.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Sunday, 15 April 2007 06:44 (nineteen years ago)

It'd seem like a pretty white-American thought process to have that description spring to mind in the first place.

I'm still unclear on this theory.

― Ben Boyerrr, Sunday, 15 April 2007 10:26 (nineteen years ago)

Years ago I heard an old dude at a market stall ask for "nigger brown shoe polish", so maybe this was a phrase commonly used by shitbags at some point.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 15 April 2007 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

I tohught of service like "in the service" like army or something, but they wear green so it makes no sense.

― Will M., Sunday, 15 April 2007 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

― Abbott, Sunday, 15 April 2007 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

trudat

― bobby bedelia, Sunday, 15 April 2007 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

Years ago I heard an old dude at a market stall ask for "nigger brown shoe polish", so maybe this was a phrase commonly used by shitbags at some point.

I'm fairly sure there was a shoe polish brand of that name in the 1970s.

I remember a box of crayons labelled as 'n***er brown' at my primary school (c.1977).

― onimo, Sunday, 15 April 2007 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

Could the change from Nigger to Service have anything to do with black servants? google comes up with nothing, but isn't there some infamous product where the Smiling Black Man logo has been changed to a butler?

― Slumpman, Monday, 16 April 2007 00:11 (nineteen years ago)

Darlie Brown

― Abbott, Monday, 16 April 2007 00:20 (nineteen years ago)

Good grief.

― Mark C, Monday, 16 April 2007 00:48 (nineteen years ago)

Service brown = UPS uniforms and uh park rangers? Does not show dirt, isn't navy (which is a police color, moreso), presents a gentler image than black. Just a guess.

― Laurel, Monday, 16 April 2007 01:52 (nineteen years ago)

you're so smart

― JW, Monday, 16 April 2007 01:54 (nineteen years ago)

A girl has to have some standards.

― Laurel, Monday, 16 April 2007 01:57 (nineteen years ago)

janitors wear service brown too

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 16 April 2007 02:06 (nineteen years ago)

hey maybe it's service brown as in military SERVICEMEN

http://www.diggerhistory.info/images/uniforms/jacket07.jpg

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 16 April 2007 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

^ that's called a "service jacket"

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 16 April 2007 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

http://www.abercrombie-and-fitchoutlet.com/abercrombie-fitch-mpa11-nigger-brown-pants.html

― The Reverend, Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:23 (fourteen years ago)

.....

― The Reverend, Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:23 (fourteen years ago)

hoax

http://gawker.com/5895668/how-a-bad-chinese-translation-program-caused-a-racism-scandal-for-abercrombie--fitch

― 3hunn O))) (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:25 (fourteen years ago)

went over this on the Is This Racist thread

― the sir edmund hillary of sitting through pauly shore films (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:26 (fourteen years ago)

hmmm, interesting

― The Reverend, Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:27 (fourteen years ago)

Whiney didn't think so

― the sir edmund hillary of sitting through pauly shore films (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 22 March 2012 22:29 (fourteen years ago)

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